The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1887-05-21
It her service as long IS life and health

am sure he was better fitted by nat
ure for the ministry of the church ht
served than he would have been for any
other. And that fact will appear the
more clearly if speak of some of the
most salient features of his spirit and
life, for his Office as Clergyman was no
mere function. He was man and minis
ter at once. He never left his manhood
behind him when he entered the pulpit.
He never became unconscious of his call
ing even in the most unrestrained mo-
ments of private life. His nature took q
mighty hold upon the Gospel, because
the Gospel had taken q mighty hold upon
him. The great central principles of the
| system of truths which were almost re-
discovered by the Universalists of this
century and the last, grew into the very
core of his life. They satisfied his nat
ure, and that nature went out to meet
them with vigorous strength. And the
longer he lived the truhr exponent he be-
came OF his own faith. He was living
example of what UniyersaIism really
meant. A friend of his early ministry
told me that when my father was preach
ing in Maiden a man Of that town, a Bit
ter opponent Of Universalism, made the
remark: swell, they have new minis
ter at the First parrish. He's hard one
for us to handle. We might get along
with his preaching; but what are we 60
ing to do with man whose life is SO
nearly right as his"
There was one particular in which he
was eminently qualified to preach the
Gospel of the triumph Of God and of
good, in that he had most wonderful
sense of the divine presence and power
in human life. never knew a man with
a more abiding, unchanging, constant
sense of Gods indwelling spirit. This
world to him was Gods thought and
Gods handiwork. Human life, his own
life, were the outcome and fulfilment of
heavenly plan. He devoutly believed
that his own career was Gods care and
Gods wisdom and Gods love made man
ifest to him and thp,agh him. He was
Gods child and God was his Father.
The work he was dong was always a
work he must honor and do faithfully
because it was Gods charge to him, to
be well and truly performed. The path
he was called to tread was one in which he
always had the leading of heavenly
Hand, in which he never moved alone.
When at the age three score years and
! tsn U be, J, q hildEaEl U 9pds gathered il
his happiness, he read us hymn he had
written for the day, whose opening lines
reveal all the deep and tender trust of
his nature.
From childhood's hour, through manhood's
PRIME
Up to the outlook. where
The revelations of my life,
Lord, thy love declare:
How clearly do / trace thy hand
Through all my pilgrim way,
Leading me on, through darkness,
Into the golden day.
That was bis hearts real utterance. He
believed from his soul that God had his
hand on every mans life. and SO on the
organic and complete life of the world.
And with that strong, invincible sense OF
divine life in human life, and of the di-
vine power surrounding and cherishing
all, he had in him the roots of Universal
ism. He was all ready for the truth which
in due time was presented to him, that
he who is thus careful of the world in
which he is constant presence and fac.
tor, will never depart out of it, nor suf-
fer it to perish out OF his hand.
And when he came to believe in this
larger Interpretation of Christianity, he
took hold of it with power and an ardor
for which there are no expressions too
emphatic. He was most uncompromis-
ing believer. This gospel was to him
the truth, the whole truth and nothing
but the truth. When it broke upon his
understanding, it came as light comes in
the morning. And when it had come,
he had no more doubt of its essential and
inherent trustworthiness than he had OF
the sun in the heavens at noon. He was
very young man when this truth took
possession of his life; indeed, he was but
twenty-three when he was ordained to
preach it. And in all the years of his life
he grew more and more into its spirit,
and trusted more and more implicitly in
its declarations. / do not think, in all
the years of his mature life, that there
was ever doubt, misgiving, or fear
in his soul that the message he was speak
ing might not be true.
Moreover, he never had a question
about the adaptation of this truth to hui
manity, even as he never doubted human
ity's capacity for this truth. He believed
that it was of God, and that it was the
gospel. And he would have deemed it
base infidelity to the gospel of Jesus
Christ to deem, for an instant, that it was
not to be uttered in all it's glorious full
ness and meaning, to every child of the
heavenly Father. His lips never framed
the question implying the possibility that
the message he was uttering to the world
lacked the persuasiveness of the sterner
creeds, or that its terms might be miscon-
strued by the sinner TO his hurt He
believed, on the contrary, that it was
word to be uttered wherever there was a
soul, heart, a conscience to hear it, and
whoever heard, be he obedient or rebel.